Justification:
A broadly distributed continental and insular shelf species of the Indian, west and central Pacific Oceans. Usually found within a narrow band of shallow coral reef habitat and soft bottom (to 62 m), that is heavily fished throughout all its range except Australia. Taken in inshore fisheries (demersal trawls, floating and fixed bottom gillnets and baited hooks) and seen in fish markets in Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Pakistan, India, Taiwan, and elsewhere. There are limited data on population declines in these areas, with the exception of the Gulf of Thailand, but the species is susceptible to local inshore fisheries and coral reef habitat loss and damage because of its habitat preferences and limited dispersion.

In Australia, where this species is abundant, has a wide distribution and is captured only in very small numbers in prawn trawls, it is assessed as Least Concern.

Inshore waters of the continental and insular shelves. Occurs in tropical, shallow inshore and offshore waters near the bottom; often found on and around coral reefs and on sandy plateaus near coral, at depths down to at least 62 m (Compagno and Niem 1998).

Threats within Australia are likely to be minimal, no target fisheries. Potentially susceptible to capture by prawn trawls, however very few are reported in the Northern Prawn Fishery (Mark Tonks, CSIRO Marine Research, pers. comm. 2003).

Although there is no direct evidence of population decline in the Indo-West Pacific, market surveys suggest this species is much less common than it used to be (L.J.V Compagno and William White, pers. comms. 2003). In the Gulf of Thailand, it was historically more abundant and it may have been adversely affected by the use of explosives and poisons on reefs in the Indian Ocean and western Pacific (Compagno 2001). Apart from baited hooks, S. fasciatum is susceptible to capture in a wide range of inshore fisheries. This, in combination with a narrow habitat range and limited dispersal makes this species vulnerable to population decline.